I'm not necessarily accepting any notion that Obama was born outside the USA, Ebbie...I'm just saying that for me, it doesn't matter if he WAS. The only thing that would matter to me would be how he feels about himself NOW. If he feels like an American inside, then he IS an American as far as I'm concerned, and I wouldn't give a toot if he spent the first year or two of his life in some other country, because it wouldn't matter.

I realize it would matter in a strictly legal sense, but I don't give a damn, because the law, in that respect, would be an ass. The only thing that actually matters is the person's own innate sense of who they are. A child that grows up culturally AS an American IS an American. Period. And if that child was born somewhere else and lived there for a short while, so what?

I know a great many Canadians who were born somewhere else but came here when quite young. They are all Canadians. They are not Germans, Scots, Irish, Indians, Russians or anything else. They are Canadians. You know why? Because their cultural sense of themselves derives first and foremost from this society, that's why.

I've seen nothing about Obama that does not suggest to me that his primary cultural roots were formed in the USA...regardless of where he was born. He is therefore an American.

People who cling to technicalities of the written law to disavow much more simple and clear realities are in my opinion merely opportunistic scoundrels looking to gain some momentary advantage, not people seeking justice or fairness.